On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> I'm beginning to be distressed that one can't ask a simple factual question
> (assuming there is such a thing) without someone attaching a value judgement
> to it.
>
> The question is not whether you "need" a double manual for Loeillet (or
> whoever), but what harpsichords were around in Amsterdam at the beginning of
> the 18th century. If people played mainly singles, were they Ruckers-type
> singles with a 8' and a 4' or other kinds of beasts, maybe with two 8' foot
> registers? Did they get their harpsichords from Antwerp or somewhere else?

Well, I don't know aout right at 1700, but I know that a lot of their
harpsichord music from later in the century sounded remarkably French.  i
have a friend that i helped prepare for the IU "Doctoral Styles" exam by
playing drop-the-laser-lens with her very own CD collection.  She has a
two-Cd set of baroque harpsichord music from the Netherlands, which,
luckily for the purposes of the exercise, she hadn't listened to very
much.  Much of the music could easily be mistaken for Couperin or Rameau.

Beth